TRIBUTE TO PROFESSOR MITSURU WAKABAYASHI

I was then a struggling PhD student...

Doing shadow boxing in a pitch-dark room with not a ray of light coming in...

The road was long, and I saw no light at the end of the tunnel...

My story was probably not unique to foreign students doing their PhD program in the area of social science in Japan...

'Unlucky' foreign students suddenly find themselves stuck in a position whereby their supervisor-professors don't speak English...

Or worse, they find out that their supervisor-professors are not really qualified to supervise them in their field of interest...

Stuck because... it was very difficult to 'change' supervisors in Japanese universities...

Perhaps because of the 'lost of face' for the professor whom the student rejects for another?

It was like... I was in a game center...

I popped in a 100-yen coin...

Played the game... which was to last three minutes (years)...

Come 'game-over', I am out of there...

Penniless and without anything to my name...

And just before end-game, appeared Professor Mitsuru Wakabayashi...

He was not only fluent in English but he was an effective communicator... learned... warm... kind... humble... and respectful even of a struggling younger 'researcher' like me...

He helped me with the questionnaire survey, writing request letters that referred to me as his 'colleague'...

I was but a mere struggling PhD candidate, no doubt working as a Research Associate for someone else then...

No doubt he was but my 'shadow-supervisor'...

But there are qualms whatsoever that if there was one mentor in my life, it is Professor Wakabayashi...

His area of work almost encompassed mine... he got me rolling with my PhD thesis... and introduced me to international conferences...

In short, he 'saved' my life...

Professor Mitsuru Wakabayashi...

On that fateful tenth January day of 2006, my heart wept...

I salute you... Sir...

And... may God be with you...

PROFESSOR MITSURU WAKABAYASHI

This is a picture I took of Professor Wakabayashi on 18th March 2003.

Here at a party to mark his retirement from Nagoya University, he stood... visibly humbled by the many accolades from his former students...

I had purposely made the trip to Nagoya just to see him...

And was elated to be asked to give a note of appreciation for all he had done for me...

See related story here...

GRINNING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

Been smiling from ear to ear these few days...

First, a guy sent me an email about an interview for a position as a cadet pilot..

He had searched the net and voila!

But my stint with the cadet pilot thingy was more than 20 years ago...

So, there was not much I could 'advise' him on..

The one thing that I recall clearly during the interview was seeing the next candidate after me, practically shivering from anxiety...

I felt sorry for him...

Was born in the year of the doggo...

So, I am coming to four full cycles this year...

Wheeeiiii... turning portee eight this July, man... and still going steady...

And I just received an email from a fellow bolehlander who has just completed his doctorate...

I'd like to say... he's got the world at his feet now...

A snap of the finger, and he is there... rolling and ready to take off...

No?

Anyway... really nice to hear these news...

So, if you happen to see a guy, rather thinly mustached... grinning like a silly fellow in town...

That's yours truly...

POSTER BOY OF REFORMS FALLS FROM GRACE

Last night, I believe the whole of Japan was glued to the TV while I had my ears plugged to the radio...

The man touted as the Poster Boy of the Koizumi Reforms fell from grace after he was arrested last night on suspicion of securities law violations.

Takafumi Horie is only 33 years old... suspected of spreading rumors and filing false financial reports with the aim of boosting share prices.

He sits (or sat, already?) on the apex of the huge internet company LiveDoor, a firm he first sat up while a student at Tokyo University...

Over 10 years, he bought up over 40 companies.

Can you imagine buying an average of 4 companies a year?

In the last elections, Horie stood as a candidate in Hiroshima, pitted against Kamei, a seasoned politician who broke away from the LDP.

During the campaign, Koizumi and his lieutenants profusely praised Horie as being the epitome of success from his reforms...

He lost the election...

Investigators arrested him after just one week of intense investigations...

Compare that to that blue eye Poster Boy of the NEP who also fell from grace some years ago...

But instead of the possibility of facing any charges, he is enjoying his nasi lemak in the comforts of his chateau...

Even as slimy mud is being slung at his face by the courts...

ROSES ARE RED AND SAKURAS ARE PINK

This huha over the Moorthy case...

And now, Nyonya Tahir's case...

Exactly what are we Malaysians grinding our heads over with these issues?

Once a Malay writer lamented about the siege mentality of the Malays...

He asked...

How could we, being the majority of the population, be so defensive and so afraid of our situation?

I remain drawn to the comment by Moorthy's wife...

When the deputy prime minister (?) presented her with Moorthy's pension money and after-death promotion to sergeant (?)...

She said to the effect that, these 'gifts' did not interest her...

All she wanted back was her husband... even dead...

A lawyer friend asked me...

Assume you are an atheist and you take out an Islamic loan from a bank... any bank...

Then soon after, you defaulted...

And the bank pressed charges...

Question...

Which court would they bring you to?

No prizes for correct answers... I say...

And may I repeat after another writer that we cannot oscillate between two systems depending on our whims...

Back to Nyonya Tahir's case... Ayah Pin's case... etc...

My question is...

Is it possible that all roses are red?

All sakuras, pink?

(mmulibra, if you haven't seen it yet, go to Nagoya University and walk up towards Toyota Auditorium... you will see a sakura tree on your right and it isn't pink in color...)

And all Indians are Hindus while all Chinese, pork-eating, gambling Taoists?

Allow me to pull this further... that all Malays are Muslims and none other?

Is it natural?

As I have always maintained, religion is a personal choice...

When I kick the bucket, I want to be cremated after any useful organs have been extracted...

And my ashes sprinkled in the Japan Inland Sea right in front of my house, and perhaps around a favorite dive location that I have yet to decide on...

CASTELLA

Castella or Kasutera (Japanese: カステラ) is a somewhat plain sponge cake made of sugar, flour, eggs, and starch syrup...

The Japanese purportedly learned how to make this cake from the Portuguese...

As with other stuff, the Japanese like to wrap their gifts in style....

Here, it is gold wrappings, accompanied by the usual long story of how the 'shokunin' (craftsmen) toiled dep into the night to bring you this wonderful delicacy...

I like its simplicity... its chewiness...

Goes very well with powdered green tea...

WE ARE OUR FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE

Received the following email which I shall reproduce word for word, minus the identity of the sender...

Dear Dr. Lrong Lim,

Hi, I am actually 'YYYYY' who posted comments in your blog. Chose to send you this email cause it didn't had anything to do with your blog but has something to do with Kedah. Sungai Petani actually. There's has been a terrible rape case in Taman Ria Jaya, 25 years old female UUM graduate in accounting, was supposed to go to Germany next week on official business. She was jogging at the time but ended up dead by the roadside.

Now my friends are asking me "woah...SP so scary one ar...". The image is deteorating. Remembered last time there was a case in Hosp. Sg. Petani that there was a stolen baby? Caused a real stir in Malaysia that time. Police found out that it was actually a nurse from the hospital who took it. shish....that really didn't help improve sp's image either. Seems like the more developed the place is more crimes are going to be committed.

Sometimes I feel really ashamed coming from SP. People used to talk about nice things about here. Now it's the reverse...I used to bear some northern pride in myself when I tell people where I come from. Looks like I will have to move away from SP. Aie...

Well, just wanted to share this thought of mine with you Sir. Hope you don't mind.

Cheers

Regards,
'YYYYY'


I feel really sad to read this kind of news.

That it happened in Kedah... just adds to the pain...

The police apparently arrested 6 suspects.

Fat hopes maybe, but I sincerely wish to see the police and the court would do a fair job at delivering justice.

At the same time, we must all remember that we have the responsibility ourselves, as well as the control and the means to at least minimize the chances of harm being done on us...

We are our first line of defense, my dear friends...

We should try not to make ourselves vulnerable...

Not to make ourselves 'easy targets'...

In other words, folks... let's think 'SAFETY'...

By all means, go jogging... go hiking...

But why go alone?

Why not go with someone?

At least with two or more people jogging or trekking, those rascals may think twice...

In the meantime, my deepest condolences go to the family of Ms. Chee Gaik Yap...

She had the world laid on her feet...

May she rest in peace...

SKEPTICAL ME...

Says the paper on 17th January 2006...

Getting the full picture: Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi reading the report submitted by the Inquiry Commission Monday on the nude squat controversy. The Prime Minister will present the report before the Cabinet Wednesday. A decision will then be made on whether it should be made public. A copy of the report was earlier submitted to the King by Commission chairman Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah. -Bernamapic

Oooh... call me a skeptical sanabagooon...

Tell me, my dear friends... does our man here look like he is reading the text?

He seems to be merely flipping the pages...

No?

And, he looks like he wants to say something...

But the words just refuse to come out?

No?

BIRD FLIES OVER PADDY FIELDS

Rice paddies surround my kampong...

Completely...

They were just about a month away from harvesting...

Behind my brother's house is Gunung Keriang... aka Elephant Hill...

And, what bird could that be...

WADAIKO

There's this thing called 'wadaiko'...

Japanese drums, that is...

Whenever I hear a wadaiko performance, I am almost always moved...

Moved in such a peculiar way...

That tears just flow from my eyes...

This afternoon was no exception...

Even though I was the Emcee for the Japanese New Year Event...

This thing call wadaiko...

I might just have been a wadaiko performer in my prior life...

I REFUSED TO BE SLAUGHTERED... Part 2

But my appetite for that thorny stuff was not to be satiated...

The rain poured and poured as the thunder rolled and rolled...

The clock ticked past 7:30 pm...

My thoughts turned to how in the world we were going to return to the hotel to catch the taxi bound for KLIA at 8:00 pm...

Monorail?

Taxi?

Or, a walk through the downpour?

I flagged a taxi in the rain...

Ten ringgit, the taxi man demanded...

What? I almost exclaimed...

Man, how about using the meter?

Minutes later, I flagged down another taxi...

'Ten ringgit', the taxi man demanded as if on cue...

I waved him off and pondered my options momentarily...

Was getting a bit undecided on whether to flag down a third taxi...

Because... on reflex, I might just punch the next unscrupulous-scoundrel of a taxi man in the nose the moment he mumbled the number 'ten'...

Although ten ringgit is nothing to shout about, I was in no mood to be slaughtered...

Just then, the rains weakened and we embarked on our first steps toward the hotel...

At the KLIA MAS check-in counter, a cute looking staff offered to upgrade us to business class...

Woaaahh...

But, she suggested that I put on a long sleeve shirt over the very cute fish tee shirt I was wearing...

Why, I inquired...

And the cute lady, 'Oh, because you are going to sit in the business class...'

We walked towards some chairs in the far end...

Welcoming my eyes was a scene of local-looking people sleeping on chairs purposely arranged as beds...

They didn't appear to be air travelers to me...

I changed into my not-so-cute long sleeves and headed towards the tram for the international terminal...

Part 1 here...

I REFUSED TO BE SLAUGHTERED

While in Kedah, paid homage to our favorite Nasi Lemak Haji Ali, Mee Abu, and ikan bakar at Tanjung Dawai...

At KL, met up with several of my friends to 'tokok', joke, and what else but to stuff ourselves silly with more gorgeous goodies...

Steam fish, 'artificial' shark fin soup (my favorite), tosai with bawang and telur, beggars' chicken, beggars' duck, beggars' pig leg (horrendous!), longevity soup (two large bowls), lobsters on noodles, nyonya food, papayas, mangoes, young coconuts and more...

But missing sorely in the list was the durian...

A friend had it some days ago and drove around searching for it...

But lady luck was nowhere to be found...

Had stayed three nights at Morib, two nights at a new friend's SS 17 condo, and two more nights at Crown Plaza hotel (the 'old' Hilton)...

On our final night at KL, my missus and I wanted a simple dinner before heading to KLIA...

So we walked to the Bukit Bintang Plaza area...

As we gnawed on the so-so food, the rains fell and the heavens thundered...

Just then, I gasped as I saw a brightly lit stall with durians dangling... just a few meters from our table...

Part 2 here...

NEW YEAR, NEW ADDRESS, NEW BIKE

Our house is pretty cold... even with the heaters on continuously

It was probably built to be a holiday-summer house...

My missus suggested that we 'reform' the second floor...

Let's make it nice, cozy, and warm... she said...

I could not agree with her more...

Shall be talking to some contractors soon...

Weather this morning was cool and nice...

No wind... no snow...

Rode my new bike to work for the first time....

(See pic here... mine is light blue though...)

Today, my town together with four other neighboring townships merge with Takamatsu city...

The population in the city is now over 400,000...

Still a mid-size city, though...

LONG NIGHT @ KLIA... Part 2

We returned to the gate, only to find it changed...

Waiting past midnight, we suddenly saw the flight and cabin crew leaving the plane...

Several agitated passengers rushed toward the sleepy girl at the counter, demanding for an explanation of the situation...

But, an explanation was the furthest thing she could furnish in her comatose state...

Meanwhile, no other staff apparently dared to present themselves at the counter...

So when MAS told us that the flight was further delayed indefinitely (the monitor merely said, 'Re-timed'), many of us growled uncontrollably...

At about 1:30 am, MAS announced the cancellation of the flight...

I was already limp... no... dead from the exhaustion of the long day...

MAS was finally going to put us in a hotel...

I was dead wrong thinking that we could just walk towards a waiting bus for the hotel...

Instead, me and some passengers who chose to reclaim our checked in bags were forced to walk all the way to the furthest baggage conveyor...

I couldn't help blurting out to the MAS staff that all these maneuvers were designed to torture us to the maximum...

At 3:30 am, we finally reached Holiday Inn at Shah Alam...

Nice hotel... I must say...

A super-quick shower and 4:00 am it was when I hit the pillow...

Breakfast at 8:00 am was very good, I must admit...

Siew mai and char siew pau without pork... pretty delicious...

While waiting to board the bus, a fellow traveler, a young man, pulled me to a corner and said...

Your fly is open...

Aaarrrggghhh... shy, shy...

Once seated, we laughed wryly at the bus driver who chose to play the song 'Don't worry... be happy...'

Yeah, right... I almost sang along...

At KLIA, we decided to fly to Langkawi instead, after calling the Penang hotel to be erroneously informed that our friend was not checked in...

Took the ferry and found my brother waiting for me at the Kuala Kedah terminal...

See Part 1 here...

LONG NIGHT @ KLIA

The first thing that hit me the morning we returned to Japan was the seemingly never-ending announcements in the long distance bus trip back home from Kansai International.

Was so sleepy after the midnight flight that I had hoped the driver would just keep silent and concentrate on driving us home...

Regardless, a good short trip back home it was...

As in previous occasions, managed to achieve most of the KPIs with regards to what else but, food...

On our way from Japan, we could not continue our flight to Alor Star because the floodwaters have encroached on the runway...

So, made a snap decision to head to Penang to surprise a good friend who is also back for a holiday...

But surprise it was not to be...

The Malaysia Airlines flight was originally due to depart at 6:20 pm...

At check-in, we were informed of its delay to 8:20 pm...

8:20 pm came and went as the staff announced a further delay to 10:20 pm...

10:20 pm came and went...

Passengers began to get agitated...

A lady staff sternly told us that it was due to 'technical problems'...

Huhh??

Meanwhile, we found out from passengers that Malaysia Airlines flew two flights respectively to Kota Baru and Kuala Trengganu, only to turn back on all occasions after failing to land...

We were offered meal coupons...

Even on an empty stomach, the 'food' tasted hopelessly bland...

Man, why do they hire such awful cooks at the airport?

See Part 2 here...